Thinking and cooking like a homesteader necessarily mean you're going to have to shop like one, too. Shopping like a homesteader means different things to different people, but here's what it means to me.
Shopping like a homesteader means being frugal, buying used whenever possible, and being careful to produce more rather than consume more. For many, it also means getting out of all debt as fast as possible, which honestly makes a whole lot of sense, especially these days, but that isn't always possible for everyone, what with a pandemic still raging and job pay still staying too low. So, while putting every dime you have into paying off all debt is a good plan, it makes sense to start by being frugal, buying used, and balancing production vs consumption. We live in a consumerist-based society, one in which we are constantly told to buy more and more and more. Even good homesteading influencers who make great videos and blogs on how to do this or that have gotten in on the act, telling us to buy freeze dryers, seeds from only this one supplier, and this or that special tool with their coupon code. We use the codes and think that we're helping them and saving money at the same time, but here's the thing: we still spent money, possibly money we didn't really have to spend. Being frugal isn't just about not spending. It's about spending only when you have to and being smart about it. My husband and I use Trello, a free app, to share shopping lists. I have a list for every store and place we buy from on there, and we add things we need or could use to the list as a to-do list so we can check things off or uncheck them as needed. Doing it this way means we both have access to all the shopping lists in case we have a chance to stop by or one of us thinks of something the other forgot, but it also means we end up talking about what we need vs what we want, usually during our weekly staff meetings. Do we really need more of that thing from the grocery store? Did we use it up in time? How much is that thing? Do we really need it, or can we make do without it? Even smaller purchases get talked about so as to keep a close eye on our spending. I've been able to cut down quite a bit on what we spend at the grocery store, not just by focusing on using up what we preserved last year, but also by meal planning by the month and then making sure to use up leftovers faster. We still get too much takeout for our liking, so that's the next part to work on, but planning out meals, only buying what we need for those meals in addition to what I already have in the pantry, and replacing what we've used up has taken a lot out of the frivolous food budget. You know the kind I'm talking about: the extra that we always end up buying every time we go to the grocery store. Oh, this thing is on sale that I didn't know about, they finally have that back in stock, or I'm hungry and that sounds amazing right this second. That stuff. It's hard to be frugal without a strict list, and it's even harder if you shop when hungry. With food prices skyrocketing, we just cannot afford too many or any of those extra purchases, not at the grocery store, not at the plant nursery, not at the farm store. My husband is the king of buying used stuff or getting stuff for free. He searches the FB Marketplace groups for things we need or could use, and it's amazing how often he finds things for a fraction of their price new. He and I love to hit estate sales and thrift shops with our lists, and honestly, that's where most of what I use every day has come from. Estate sales have great garden tools that just need a bit of cleaning up for a tenth or less of the tool's cost new. Thrift stores have good clothes, especially farm clothes that will get ripped and stained fast, for cheap, especially on sales days. FB Marketplace often has important things we need pop up, like the honey extractor my husband surprised me with this week for less than half of the cost new or even the cost to make our own. Honestly, it just doesn't make sense to us to buy new for many things these days, so we keep lists going for that, too. Last week, a young dad posted online that he and his young family had just moved to the area and that he didn't know what to do with all the cardboard from the boxes and all. I swooped in and took that for weed barriers in my garden, but a gal who had a compost sifter for a few dollars I was getting that same day was selling it because she was moving. She ended up taking some of what the dad had given me, as she needed it for packing more than I needed it for anything. I ended up getting needed stuff for my garden, she got what she needed for moving, and that young family got to get rid of a mess of packing stuff without having to worry more about it and even got to connect with their new community a bit. This kind of thing happens to us all the time. Robert will get something for free by the side of the road, and then it turns out someone in a free group needs that exact thing and will trade something that is on our list, or he is able to help a single parent out with this cheap part he was able to take off of something else, and it all works out in the end. There's no reason to spend tons of money on new stuff when so many Americans just throw fairly new stuff out all the time. In the end, though, it's about producing more than we consume, which is directly against what our society tells us to do every day on social media, in the regular media and ads everywhere, even in our movies and music. We're homesteaders, though, so it's about balance. We rarely shop for fun, and if we do, it's at a thrift store or the local estate sale outlet with a top budget already planned out. We focus more on getting the garden ready and in, making stuff as our hobbies, and fixing up what we can. If I get yarn from someone downsizing on FB for half or less what it would cost new and then knit up a sweater from that, I have made something with love and had many hours of enjoyment. If my husband gets a beater car and figures out that it only needs a couple of cheap parts to then pass it along to a family member at a price they can afford, he's had hours of enjoyment and saved them money, often money they didn't really have for the new car they needed. If I can make a pie or something for a friend, rather than buy something at a big store, or if he can pass along something he found for cheap that his parents suddenly found themselves needing, we're keeping more stuff out of landfills, saving money, and producing more than we consume. This is, ultimately, what homesteading is really about: making do with what we have, growing and raising as much of our food as possible, focusing on producing more than consuming.
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CarinaI'm a 40s something disabled mom living the life on our small urban farm. Archives
April 2022
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